The Nature And Origin Of The State…( A Must Read)

The idea that the State originated to serve any kind of social purpose is completely unhistorical. – Albert Jay Nock

It is imperative that we understand, first of all, that “Everything the state is capable of doing it does through compulsion and the application of force.” Even apologists for the state cannot deny this fact.

Neither can its apologists deny (at least convincingly) that “every State has been and is a class State, and every theory of the State has been and is a class theory,”i acknowledgement of which can be found as far back as Plato, who, having addressed the settle-ment of formerly nomadic tribes in The Statesman, depicts – with obvious approval – their conquest and subjugation in The Republic:

Plato gives us a mythological yet very pointed description of the conquest itself, when dealing with the origin of the “earthborn,” the ruling class of the best city. Their victorious march into the city, previously founded by the tradesmen and workers, it described as follows: “After having armed and trained the earthborn, let us now make them advance, under the command of the guardians, till they ar-rive in the city. Then let them look round to find out the best place for their camp – the spot that is most suitable for keeping down the inhabitants, should anyone show unwillingness to obey the law, and for holding back external enemies who may come down like wolves on the fold.” This short but triumphant tale of the subjugation of a sedentary population by a conquering war horde … must be kept in mind when we interpret Plato’s reiterated insistence that good rulers … are pa-triarchal shepherds of men and that the true political art, the art of ruling, is a kind of herdsmanship, i.e., the art of managing and keeping down human cattle.ii

Even so, Plato’s pupil Aristotle rejected this “art,” placing the origin of the state more palatably, albeit mistakenly, at the end of a purely organic process: